Social media can give you a huge marketing opportunity, but most companies struggle with their company’s social strategy, that is if they even have a marketing strategy at all. But in SM this is more because the rules are rather foggy. Marketers need to understand engaging with consumers and not worry about negative publicity. They're not sure how to start conversations and manage comments.
Successful SM programs don't have to be a problem. Start with sitting down and setting clear goals. This includes putting a face on the brand or company. People buy from people not logos! Make your program fun and relevant, and guide your followers into a buy option to tactical postings and conversation on solving a problem. Design your program to use minimal time and valuable resources to maximize ROI.
Visitors to your Social Media site should be invited to ask questions about your company and services. Feed this into Facebook and Twitter, optimize for major search engines and linked back to your company's Social Media site(s).
For companies that want to maximize their social media ROI, I recommend 5 basic rules for Social Media Marketing engagement:
1) Take charge. Build a sense of community and humanize your brand by engaging customers.
2) Help consumers out. Enlist the help of your company’s experts or customers to provide useful information about your products & services. Loyal customers are your best advocates.
3) Utilize automation. A social media program doesn't need to bust your time or money budget. Make it efficient and workable.
4) Connect the program together. Integrate social media tactics with the rest of your marketing plan, including brand, PR, search, videos and promotions.
5) Measure results. In addition to counting followers, fans and tweets, be sure to track Web visitors and conversions from social media channels and above all sales.
Your brand can be positioned to take in a good ROI from social media if you take control of the online dialogue and design a program that is engaging, relevant, workable and measurable.
Larson Notes & Satire: Social media can work if you work it right. You need to follow your instincts and not always the experts. They might know how it works for them, but they are not you. You and your company are unique and you need to put your personal stamp on your SM marketing. The experts might be able to help you string it all together so you need to do less hands on work with interlinking but in the end it has to be your words and your engagement that makes the real difference.
Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws/
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com/
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates
https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate
P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.
P.P.S. An American Company, marketing American Companies! Call or email to get an appointment to pick my brain (a $125.00 value) for 30 minutes.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Monday, August 30, 2010
Working Multiple Channels Is Not a Strategy
The number of marketing channels you have available to you has grown and is still growing. As you look out over the horizon of your world, you’re going to see all kinds of ways to push your business. As great as that might seem don’t get caught in the being everywhere and spinning your wheels in the abyss of too many marketing tools you are trying to use all at the same time. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. Being everywhere is not a strategy, it is insanity.
As you start to expand, you need information on your customers. You need to know what the perfect buyer behavior is, so you can be where they are. You should start with 1 easily worked channel you can keep track of. Once you get a handle of that one, go to two and so on. Rarely should a small business go over 5 channels to work and watch. Going that high only is setting yourself up for failure because you can’t work that many marketing tools at 90% or above efficiency. It is always better to work fewer channels at maximum efficiency rather that spreading yourself out too thin.
By following this conservative approach of adding one channel at a time and working it into your program slowly you can yield bigger benefits
Larson Notes & Satire: I know you’re in a rush. We all are, Sales are down, you have a new idea to bring to the market, or you have all these new (marketing) toys you want to try. STOP! Unless you have an infinite amount of time (and sometimes money) to devote into Advertising and Marketing, be it mail, telesales, classified ads, blog, web site optimization, social media marketing. If you look at the Larson plan, I started very narrow with telemarketing, then direct mail, after that expanded into my first Social Media marketing experience at MerchantCircle. After that we moved out into a web site, then stared spreading out into other Social Media channels (infact everyone I could find), then contracted that number down to 9 that I am actively working after I found what was working and what was not.
Result, I am now getting at least 1 lead a week directly off of social media and my web site hits are up in triple figures. While this might not seem like a lot to you, in my little part of the world, this is big stuff, because not only are these leads directly in my niche but I don’t want to be the biggest telesales, target marketing company in the world, only the best.
Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws/
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com/
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates
https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate
P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.
P.P.S. An American Company, marketing American Companies! Call or email to get an appointment to pick my brain (a $125.00 value) for 30 minutes.
As you start to expand, you need information on your customers. You need to know what the perfect buyer behavior is, so you can be where they are. You should start with 1 easily worked channel you can keep track of. Once you get a handle of that one, go to two and so on. Rarely should a small business go over 5 channels to work and watch. Going that high only is setting yourself up for failure because you can’t work that many marketing tools at 90% or above efficiency. It is always better to work fewer channels at maximum efficiency rather that spreading yourself out too thin.
By following this conservative approach of adding one channel at a time and working it into your program slowly you can yield bigger benefits
Larson Notes & Satire: I know you’re in a rush. We all are, Sales are down, you have a new idea to bring to the market, or you have all these new (marketing) toys you want to try. STOP! Unless you have an infinite amount of time (and sometimes money) to devote into Advertising and Marketing, be it mail, telesales, classified ads, blog, web site optimization, social media marketing. If you look at the Larson plan, I started very narrow with telemarketing, then direct mail, after that expanded into my first Social Media marketing experience at MerchantCircle. After that we moved out into a web site, then stared spreading out into other Social Media channels (infact everyone I could find), then contracted that number down to 9 that I am actively working after I found what was working and what was not.
Result, I am now getting at least 1 lead a week directly off of social media and my web site hits are up in triple figures. While this might not seem like a lot to you, in my little part of the world, this is big stuff, because not only are these leads directly in my niche but I don’t want to be the biggest telesales, target marketing company in the world, only the best.
Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws/
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com/
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates
https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate
P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.
P.P.S. An American Company, marketing American Companies! Call or email to get an appointment to pick my brain (a $125.00 value) for 30 minutes.
Friday, August 27, 2010
Social Media Does Have A Cost
Time and money, money and time, which is the biggest cost of Social Media (SM).
If you have not allocated your resources you had better sit down and do it. Social Media can eat up time faster than a dog eating a steak. If you have not allocated money, there are more Social Media sites out there you can buy into that will not put back a single dime in your wallet. Choose wisely.
Now I have adjusted my schedule to work in social media marketing and networking, so I am not eaten alive. But what is the justification? I view social media as a way for client and prospect outreach as a way to shine in ways we can help them. I have often talked about nitch marketing and that is what I try to do with my social media outreach. Heck, if everyone of my friends told there printers about my business and what I could do for them in finding them new customers and solid leads I would be a very happy camper right now with about 6 – 10 more people working for me.
So keep in mind that even in free there is a cost. The cost of time and that can never be gotten back.
Larson Notes & Satire: A couple of days ago a site owner asked me to call him. I did, and for the next 27 minutes he beat on me how I should pay him money (not much but money is money) to be on his site which I had never gotten a single sale from. He told me how I did not have enough friends, how spamming peoples email boxes in a ning site was a good way to communicate, how my blogs were a worthless effort to market, how on his site no one read or looked at the front page. Well sorry Charlie, not going back to your ning page. You and your membership will now lose any insight my old graying blond head chooses to share. And for most of my readers all I am doing is sharing knowledge, I know most of you will probably not become customers and that’s ok. My reward, my payback is in the writing down my ideas and thoughts, which is a very powerful way for me to learn. That is why I do this. Most of you who are reading this know me, I am a B2B telesales and target marketer and do some web work for a couple of B2Cs. And if that is not bad enough if you’re not into graphics or printing even if you’re B2B might not be the best marketer for you at least in telesales work. Getting your web site up and doing some blog writing are a different story where I might be able to help you or anyone.
As for money for Social Media, I have set a strict policy to not pay any money, until in using a site for free brings me a customer, then I allocate some money in that direction, because then, I know there are people there who will use me and buy from me. Until that time, it is just a fishing trip.
So what’s in it for me? My biggest payback for the work I do in providing free information and thoughts is that my web site would not be on the first page of the Google search for the key word string “telesales for printers” if it was not for all my SM work and blogging. Thank you all my friend and readers.
Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws/
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com/
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates
http://businesswarfare.ning.com/profile/HowardLarson
https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate
P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.
P.P.S. An American Company, marketing American Companies! Call or email to get an appointment to pick my brain (a $125.00 value) for 30 minutes.
If you have not allocated your resources you had better sit down and do it. Social Media can eat up time faster than a dog eating a steak. If you have not allocated money, there are more Social Media sites out there you can buy into that will not put back a single dime in your wallet. Choose wisely.
Now I have adjusted my schedule to work in social media marketing and networking, so I am not eaten alive. But what is the justification? I view social media as a way for client and prospect outreach as a way to shine in ways we can help them. I have often talked about nitch marketing and that is what I try to do with my social media outreach. Heck, if everyone of my friends told there printers about my business and what I could do for them in finding them new customers and solid leads I would be a very happy camper right now with about 6 – 10 more people working for me.
So keep in mind that even in free there is a cost. The cost of time and that can never be gotten back.
Larson Notes & Satire: A couple of days ago a site owner asked me to call him. I did, and for the next 27 minutes he beat on me how I should pay him money (not much but money is money) to be on his site which I had never gotten a single sale from. He told me how I did not have enough friends, how spamming peoples email boxes in a ning site was a good way to communicate, how my blogs were a worthless effort to market, how on his site no one read or looked at the front page. Well sorry Charlie, not going back to your ning page. You and your membership will now lose any insight my old graying blond head chooses to share. And for most of my readers all I am doing is sharing knowledge, I know most of you will probably not become customers and that’s ok. My reward, my payback is in the writing down my ideas and thoughts, which is a very powerful way for me to learn. That is why I do this. Most of you who are reading this know me, I am a B2B telesales and target marketer and do some web work for a couple of B2Cs. And if that is not bad enough if you’re not into graphics or printing even if you’re B2B might not be the best marketer for you at least in telesales work. Getting your web site up and doing some blog writing are a different story where I might be able to help you or anyone.
As for money for Social Media, I have set a strict policy to not pay any money, until in using a site for free brings me a customer, then I allocate some money in that direction, because then, I know there are people there who will use me and buy from me. Until that time, it is just a fishing trip.
So what’s in it for me? My biggest payback for the work I do in providing free information and thoughts is that my web site would not be on the first page of the Google search for the key word string “telesales for printers” if it was not for all my SM work and blogging. Thank you all my friend and readers.
Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws/
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com/
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates
http://businesswarfare.ning.com/profile/HowardLarson
https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate
P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.
P.P.S. An American Company, marketing American Companies! Call or email to get an appointment to pick my brain (a $125.00 value) for 30 minutes.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Taming The Social Media Animal
No matter that there is a chance at massive exposure of your business in the world of Social Media, the brand building power of getting friended or retweeted, the ROI possibility of a Social Media marketing campaign. Many companies question the value of time involved in a social online presence. Many feel over whelmed by all the choices that are out there. Some are strapped in my thinking that they need a marketing person to be working with them.
As a business person you have at your finger tips a vast variety of tactics to work with. The key is to narrow your choices down to 3 or at the most 4. Work your skills at this limited number. Perhaps Facebook, Twitter, MerchantCircle, Yelp and one or two ning sites.
If worked in harmony you can get one post flying though 2, 3 or even all your sites with one posting. Pounding out your message, tactfully, non-spamfully.
Businesses can get the desired ROI through targeted messaging and community building. The key here is that it is social and you need to have some kind of involvement. Be it once an hour or once a day or even once a week. You need to make your presence known. So 1st, realize that existing and potential customers are already participating in and on the social media platforms, 2nd, that your competition is already out there hitting on your market. If you get there 2nd or 3rd, you will have to fight to be the expert in your area of expertise and that is a war that might not be winnable. The first one to a position in a customers or prospects mind is usually the winner.
It is your choice to have a social media presence or not. Sales can and do happen for small businesses. Through strategic planning, messaging and implementation of your social marketing drive, you will get results.
Larson Notes & Satire: Next month will mark 4 years of my social media marketing presence. I started with Merchants Circle and grew from there. I have gotten a few customers along the way, not as many as I might have hoped for, but I’ll take what I can get. I have staked out my territory and grew from there. I went out stacked my niche and kept narrowing it down and down and down, till my company is on a massive growth mode. We are a telesales & target marketing company that mainly specializes in graphic and printing companies.
Now, you tell me, who am I? That is what Social Media Marketing is all about.
Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws/
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com/
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates
http://teamcircle.ning.com/profile/HowardLarson
https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate
P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.
P.P.S. An American Company, marketing American Companies! Call or email to get an appointment to pick my brain (a $125.00 value) for 30 minutes.
As a business person you have at your finger tips a vast variety of tactics to work with. The key is to narrow your choices down to 3 or at the most 4. Work your skills at this limited number. Perhaps Facebook, Twitter, MerchantCircle, Yelp and one or two ning sites.
If worked in harmony you can get one post flying though 2, 3 or even all your sites with one posting. Pounding out your message, tactfully, non-spamfully.
Businesses can get the desired ROI through targeted messaging and community building. The key here is that it is social and you need to have some kind of involvement. Be it once an hour or once a day or even once a week. You need to make your presence known. So 1st, realize that existing and potential customers are already participating in and on the social media platforms, 2nd, that your competition is already out there hitting on your market. If you get there 2nd or 3rd, you will have to fight to be the expert in your area of expertise and that is a war that might not be winnable. The first one to a position in a customers or prospects mind is usually the winner.
It is your choice to have a social media presence or not. Sales can and do happen for small businesses. Through strategic planning, messaging and implementation of your social marketing drive, you will get results.
Larson Notes & Satire: Next month will mark 4 years of my social media marketing presence. I started with Merchants Circle and grew from there. I have gotten a few customers along the way, not as many as I might have hoped for, but I’ll take what I can get. I have staked out my territory and grew from there. I went out stacked my niche and kept narrowing it down and down and down, till my company is on a massive growth mode. We are a telesales & target marketing company that mainly specializes in graphic and printing companies.
Now, you tell me, who am I? That is what Social Media Marketing is all about.
Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws/
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com/
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates
http://teamcircle.ning.com/profile/HowardLarson
https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate
P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.
P.P.S. An American Company, marketing American Companies! Call or email to get an appointment to pick my brain (a $125.00 value) for 30 minutes.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Dos and Don’ts of Picking A Telesales Service
Every business yours, mine, are all looking for more ways to grow our businesses. Thus we need to find ways to generate more solid leads. If so, you might want to consider telesales.
Telesales allows you a chance for your business to get more leads using the telephone. Seems that quite often businesses find themselves in a difficult situation as they search for the right person to perform this part of their marketing attack. It can be a hard when an inexperienced and unscrupulous freelance telesales company or person can ruin your company and your brand reputation so quickly that there'll be no more room for make amends, not to mention the possibility of a very long-term damage. You do not want this to happen to your business, right?
By picking an expert telesales company, you will never run into these horror stories. Outsourcing the work to skilled and inexpensive telesales firm will give you a piece of mind that you can be sure they will be able to use proven telesales techniques, be results-driven, and get you the results you want.
As a business owner using a telesales services, you need to observe the do's and don'ts of the business. The mistakes made by most telesales companies can be avoided by doing an a little research prior the actual telesales roll out. In telesales, timing is everything. The downside of the business is when telemarketers do not know the exact right time to make the call.
Being a B2B telesales company we here at Larson & Associates don’t need to worry so much about the do not call list, but we do need to know how to be tactfully and respectfully “aggressive”. This is an art not a science.
If you are a B2C company and going into telesales, always observe the laws surrounding this business to avoid being in a problematic situation with the law. These laws are made specifically to regulate the phone calls made by these service providers. One of the major complaints would have to be calling too early in the morning or too late in the evening. Also, check the do not call registry and have these numbers removed from your list of prospect. Ethically speaking, good business practice requires you follow the law to the letter, avoid people who do not want to receive calls, and market only to a certain group of people who are truly interested with what you're selling; if not all of your efforts will be wasted, both time and money. Make sure that the company you pick observes these standards and that they pay close attention to the details.
So, there you go, you have the basics of a sound telemarketing service practice. It is up for you to utilize and outsource your telemarketing needs to a third-party ethical telemarketing firm to save you up on time and effort as well as earn you more money to keep your business rolling.
Larson Notes & Satire: When picking a telesales company ask questions, lots of questions. It is questions that made us go after printers and other graphic companies. We know the industry with 35 years of experience. Now I am not saying I won’t take on other projects in other industries, except for B2C of course, but if you are in graphics, I know you and I can sell you!
Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws/
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com/
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates
http://teamcircle.ning.com/profile/HowardLarson
https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate
P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.
P.P.S. An American Company, marketing American Companies! Call or email to get an appointment to pick my brain (a $125.00 value) for 30 minutes.
Telesales allows you a chance for your business to get more leads using the telephone. Seems that quite often businesses find themselves in a difficult situation as they search for the right person to perform this part of their marketing attack. It can be a hard when an inexperienced and unscrupulous freelance telesales company or person can ruin your company and your brand reputation so quickly that there'll be no more room for make amends, not to mention the possibility of a very long-term damage. You do not want this to happen to your business, right?
By picking an expert telesales company, you will never run into these horror stories. Outsourcing the work to skilled and inexpensive telesales firm will give you a piece of mind that you can be sure they will be able to use proven telesales techniques, be results-driven, and get you the results you want.
As a business owner using a telesales services, you need to observe the do's and don'ts of the business. The mistakes made by most telesales companies can be avoided by doing an a little research prior the actual telesales roll out. In telesales, timing is everything. The downside of the business is when telemarketers do not know the exact right time to make the call.
Being a B2B telesales company we here at Larson & Associates don’t need to worry so much about the do not call list, but we do need to know how to be tactfully and respectfully “aggressive”. This is an art not a science.
If you are a B2C company and going into telesales, always observe the laws surrounding this business to avoid being in a problematic situation with the law. These laws are made specifically to regulate the phone calls made by these service providers. One of the major complaints would have to be calling too early in the morning or too late in the evening. Also, check the do not call registry and have these numbers removed from your list of prospect. Ethically speaking, good business practice requires you follow the law to the letter, avoid people who do not want to receive calls, and market only to a certain group of people who are truly interested with what you're selling; if not all of your efforts will be wasted, both time and money. Make sure that the company you pick observes these standards and that they pay close attention to the details.
So, there you go, you have the basics of a sound telemarketing service practice. It is up for you to utilize and outsource your telemarketing needs to a third-party ethical telemarketing firm to save you up on time and effort as well as earn you more money to keep your business rolling.
Larson Notes & Satire: When picking a telesales company ask questions, lots of questions. It is questions that made us go after printers and other graphic companies. We know the industry with 35 years of experience. Now I am not saying I won’t take on other projects in other industries, except for B2C of course, but if you are in graphics, I know you and I can sell you!
Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws/
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com/
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates
http://teamcircle.ning.com/profile/HowardLarson
https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate
P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.
P.P.S. An American Company, marketing American Companies! Call or email to get an appointment to pick my brain (a $125.00 value) for 30 minutes.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Getting Your Online Talk Hooked Into You
At least for this year and into next if you want to be getting more activity you will need to find ways to coordinate your online social network marketing conversations to mesh with your social media and online presence.
As we go farther down the path of real time search, what you say, how often you say it and how you get other people to say it starts to become more important.
On this side of the computer screen we call it WOM or World Of Mouth Marketing on the other side of the screen we can call it chatter marketing.
Chatter might be your URL, it could be sharing images or videos, but it could have larger consequences for you. It could be making the key words that work on your web site better than the competition, the talk of the social media site you have a major presence in, As a result the key word strings you need to get found in an organic search start to become the norm for your group of friends.
It’s true. As the chatter builds and if done right key word stings can be manipulated to bring your web site more hits and thus higher SE ratings.
Larson Notes & Satire: Think about it. Me, the big fish in My little pond! I have a little telesales company that has niched itself to work with printers and other graphic companies. I don’t have a big 100 seat bullpen of people banging out calls. What I do have is a very good, dedicated staff of great people making targeted calls for discriminating printing and graphic companies who what more sales faster. Now if I went head to head online against the big telemarketing companies I will lose. Well maybe not but let’s not go there. Their site will probably be rated higher in the search engines and on a key word search, but if I use the key word string “telesales for printers” bingo I win! First page and the #4 listing brings up http://www.larsonassociates.ws/Printing_Telesales . The second page the number 4th search line or the 14th search line over all comes up with http://www.merchantcircle.com/business/Larson.And.Associates.847-991-0488 . Me again! Heck even my twitter page twitter.com/larsonassociate comes up on page 6.
Go on try it, I dare you to see if I’m right!
So what do I need to do? Stop using the key word telemarketing in my conversations and start using the key word telesales. Then I get you all to start saying telesales. Easier said than done but, if it gets me on page 1 and page 2 of a key word organic search. I’ll do what I got to do!
Now can you do the same thing? I’ll bet you can. If not I’m sure I can find a company that could figure it out for you, and if it gets you on page 1 of a keyword organic search what is that worth?
Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws/
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com/
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates
http://teamcircle.ning.com/profile/HowardLarson
https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate
P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.
P.P.S. An American Company, marketing American Companies! Call or email to get an appointment to pick my brain (a $125.00 value) for 30 minutes.
As we go farther down the path of real time search, what you say, how often you say it and how you get other people to say it starts to become more important.
On this side of the computer screen we call it WOM or World Of Mouth Marketing on the other side of the screen we can call it chatter marketing.
Chatter might be your URL, it could be sharing images or videos, but it could have larger consequences for you. It could be making the key words that work on your web site better than the competition, the talk of the social media site you have a major presence in, As a result the key word strings you need to get found in an organic search start to become the norm for your group of friends.
It’s true. As the chatter builds and if done right key word stings can be manipulated to bring your web site more hits and thus higher SE ratings.
Larson Notes & Satire: Think about it. Me, the big fish in My little pond! I have a little telesales company that has niched itself to work with printers and other graphic companies. I don’t have a big 100 seat bullpen of people banging out calls. What I do have is a very good, dedicated staff of great people making targeted calls for discriminating printing and graphic companies who what more sales faster. Now if I went head to head online against the big telemarketing companies I will lose. Well maybe not but let’s not go there. Their site will probably be rated higher in the search engines and on a key word search, but if I use the key word string “telesales for printers” bingo I win! First page and the #4 listing brings up http://www.larsonassociates.ws/Printing_Telesales . The second page the number 4th search line or the 14th search line over all comes up with http://www.merchantcircle.com/business/Larson.And.Associates.847-991-0488 . Me again! Heck even my twitter page twitter.com/larsonassociate comes up on page 6.
Go on try it, I dare you to see if I’m right!
So what do I need to do? Stop using the key word telemarketing in my conversations and start using the key word telesales. Then I get you all to start saying telesales. Easier said than done but, if it gets me on page 1 and page 2 of a key word organic search. I’ll do what I got to do!
Now can you do the same thing? I’ll bet you can. If not I’m sure I can find a company that could figure it out for you, and if it gets you on page 1 of a keyword organic search what is that worth?
Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws/
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com/
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates
http://teamcircle.ning.com/profile/HowardLarson
https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate
P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.
P.P.S. An American Company, marketing American Companies! Call or email to get an appointment to pick my brain (a $125.00 value) for 30 minutes.
Friday, August 20, 2010
Clone Your Top Customer To Grow!
Want to grow? Want to grow fast? Want to grow profitability?
Ok, just clone your best customers.
Most companies have an understanding of the value of keeping a current customer over having to go out and find new ones. But even in the best of companies there is still an attrition issues.
New people come in; something goes wrong, company closes. Some of these issues are totally out of your control. So what’s a poor business person suppose to do?
Focus on YOUR BEST CUSTOMER(S).
To have the greatest impact on your bottom line the fastest with new accounts look at your top 1 to 5 customers. These top 5 should be your company’s greatest asset (after your personal). You know them, you understand them, and you know how to service them. You should know and understand their needs as a group and this should be nothing new to you or your staff, so working with a new account just like those top 5 should be a piece of cake.
After you indentify these key account points go out and find companies just like those, it is easier than it might sound.
Using good old SIC numbers you can identify companies in a certain industry. Data banks can pin point companies in terms of location, company size, by sales and or employees.
Once you find them, you can almost bet they are having the same issues as your top 5. And armed with that information you should have a way to solve their problems.
Larson Notes & Satire: Pain and pleasure. If you understand the issues of your top 5 you know what are their pleasure points and work into them. On the same note you know what is bringing them the most pain. You can be the band-aid. Heal their wounds and bring them joy. You already know how. We did this here at Larson & Associates and guess what? It worked.
Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws/
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com/
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates
https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate
P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.
P.P.S. An American Company, marketing American Companies! Call or email to get an appointment to pick my brain (a $125.00 value) for 30 minutes.
Ok, just clone your best customers.
Most companies have an understanding of the value of keeping a current customer over having to go out and find new ones. But even in the best of companies there is still an attrition issues.
New people come in; something goes wrong, company closes. Some of these issues are totally out of your control. So what’s a poor business person suppose to do?
Focus on YOUR BEST CUSTOMER(S).
To have the greatest impact on your bottom line the fastest with new accounts look at your top 1 to 5 customers. These top 5 should be your company’s greatest asset (after your personal). You know them, you understand them, and you know how to service them. You should know and understand their needs as a group and this should be nothing new to you or your staff, so working with a new account just like those top 5 should be a piece of cake.
After you indentify these key account points go out and find companies just like those, it is easier than it might sound.
Using good old SIC numbers you can identify companies in a certain industry. Data banks can pin point companies in terms of location, company size, by sales and or employees.
Once you find them, you can almost bet they are having the same issues as your top 5. And armed with that information you should have a way to solve their problems.
Larson Notes & Satire: Pain and pleasure. If you understand the issues of your top 5 you know what are their pleasure points and work into them. On the same note you know what is bringing them the most pain. You can be the band-aid. Heal their wounds and bring them joy. You already know how. We did this here at Larson & Associates and guess what? It worked.
Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws/
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com/
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates
https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate
P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.
P.P.S. An American Company, marketing American Companies! Call or email to get an appointment to pick my brain (a $125.00 value) for 30 minutes.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Should You Expand Your Product/Service Line?
Things are getting better. At least I think so. But is it nice out in the land of business development and sales expansion? I don’t think so. As a business owner you start to wonder is it a good time to broaden our product line or go into other areas of services to attract a wider measure of companies or people to my business?
Diversification might look like a good way to go, but is it?
As a testament to narrow niching my own company to grow faster, companies will find that by sticking to their core capabilities and knowledge base they will expand even faster in today’s market place. People are begging to find the magic elixir and if you become an expert you can be perceived as that “Magic Man”.
If you go down the road of diversification and add core competencies or products you can (and will) become distracted. Your company’s vision will lose its way. You might find yourself supporting less revenue bearing services or products just because you now have to, when the real muscle of your business, your core competencies are ready to roll, robustly.
By the time this “Great Recession” is really over companies will find that the new markets they might have tried to get into have not even gotten starting and are still a drain on your company’s recourses or time and money.
Really, stop, look, listen. Unless your service or product has become obsolete, having and staying in your niche a totally lost cause because it doesn’t exist anymore, you need to think. Becoming an expert in your nitch in an ever crowded broad based market gets you now where. Don’t become weak and dull. You need to stay strong, and become sharp, like the edge of a knife
Larson Notes & Satire: A year ago last June I was not a happy camper. Sales were down; getting new customers was a real struggle. I was looking for ways to expand into other markets, other service areas I could be doing. Then I got, out of the blue, a phone call from an old friend. He wanted to use Me and My company, just because I would and I could do cold calls and I knew and understood the printing business better than other telemarketing companies. I said yes, of course. We needed the project. Then I took the pause that refreshes, if he needs this help and came to me because I have a special knowledge, why not others?
BINGO!
In 1 week I narrowed my marketing attack down to a narrow niche of printers and other graphic related companies. Why? Because we know you, and we can sell you better than the competition! I can’t say, yet, the rest is history, but sales are up 75% over a year ago.
There is still work to do, but life is good and getting better.
Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws/
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com/
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates
http://teamcircle.ning.com/profile/HowardLarson
https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate
P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.
P.P.S. An American Company, marketing American Companies! Call or email to get an appointment to pick my brain (a $125.00 value) for 30 minutes.
Diversification might look like a good way to go, but is it?
As a testament to narrow niching my own company to grow faster, companies will find that by sticking to their core capabilities and knowledge base they will expand even faster in today’s market place. People are begging to find the magic elixir and if you become an expert you can be perceived as that “Magic Man”.
If you go down the road of diversification and add core competencies or products you can (and will) become distracted. Your company’s vision will lose its way. You might find yourself supporting less revenue bearing services or products just because you now have to, when the real muscle of your business, your core competencies are ready to roll, robustly.
By the time this “Great Recession” is really over companies will find that the new markets they might have tried to get into have not even gotten starting and are still a drain on your company’s recourses or time and money.
Really, stop, look, listen. Unless your service or product has become obsolete, having and staying in your niche a totally lost cause because it doesn’t exist anymore, you need to think. Becoming an expert in your nitch in an ever crowded broad based market gets you now where. Don’t become weak and dull. You need to stay strong, and become sharp, like the edge of a knife
Larson Notes & Satire: A year ago last June I was not a happy camper. Sales were down; getting new customers was a real struggle. I was looking for ways to expand into other markets, other service areas I could be doing. Then I got, out of the blue, a phone call from an old friend. He wanted to use Me and My company, just because I would and I could do cold calls and I knew and understood the printing business better than other telemarketing companies. I said yes, of course. We needed the project. Then I took the pause that refreshes, if he needs this help and came to me because I have a special knowledge, why not others?
BINGO!
In 1 week I narrowed my marketing attack down to a narrow niche of printers and other graphic related companies. Why? Because we know you, and we can sell you better than the competition! I can’t say, yet, the rest is history, but sales are up 75% over a year ago.
There is still work to do, but life is good and getting better.
Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws/
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com/
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates
http://teamcircle.ning.com/profile/HowardLarson
https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate
P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.
P.P.S. An American Company, marketing American Companies! Call or email to get an appointment to pick my brain (a $125.00 value) for 30 minutes.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Quality In Your Marketing
How long is your sales cycle? How many people or companies are in your marketing nitch?
Looking at the B2B world, as a posed to the B2C side of business, Sales cycles are probably longer, there is more limited brand recognition. Trying to keep that sales funnel full and running can be a nightmare for the B2B Marketing Manager. So what can you do to keep you from walking round with your tale between your legs?
1) Project Your Target Sale: B2B sales cycles are extended and dare right complicated. As the size of the company goes down the more confusing it gets because you are working with fewer bells and whistles and dollars to keep you on track and headed in the right direction. Prospects might be less familiar with you. Lots of times your entire marketing campaign is working in a hodge podge of erratic disjointed efforts that you hope can come together as one message. Stop, sit down and take a deep breath, Your marketing needs to be put together like a classic dance, a beautiful tango, filled with passion and love and you go on till the music has stopped. Most people don’t stop dancing until the song has ended, so too you’re marketing. Your prospects need to worm up to you over a period of time. They need to feel comfortable with you before starting the buying cycle. The question is how long is that cycle going to be?
2) Give More Than You Take: Instead of asking for the sale give your prospects something of value, first! If you are having quality interactions, posting value in your interactions and blogs, it your content is specific and helpful you are on the right track. Using and posting content marketing to educate your prospects about what is important to them (that you can help of solve for them) and giving a solution helps to take your prospects down the decision path, not the yellow brick road.
3) Short Is Good: Try to keep your content short as opposed to long. Even if your service or product is a completed sale KISS, Keep It Simple Stupid! The experts say no more than 45 lines (please don’t count the lines in my blog) and no graphics unless they hammer home a key point.
4) Have Measureable and Meaningful Objectives: No fluff, no embellishing, get to the point, quickly and directly. Then measure what you have done. There are more marketing automation tools out there, and many are free for the looking. Find them, down load them, and use them.
5) Ready, Fire, Aim. No!: Prospects are precious. They are not a throw away commodity. You don’t have time or money to mess up your message. You can run a split program if your list is big enough or your pockets have enough money or you can post two different marketing messages on different SM networking sites and wee which one gets the better pull.
6) The Customer Isn’t Always Right: Two things come to mind. The first by my sales mentor Hank Trisler, The customer might not always be right but they are still the customer, and the right customer is always right. You as a marketing need to know the difference between a right customer and a wrong customer. That is where nitching yourself as tight as you can helps you know the difference. Know your ideal customer. You want as few duds to go to your sales team as possible. There time is important also. They might see fewer leads but over the long run, they will have to work less and gain more, faster.
Larson Notes & Satire: There are a lot of things I could be saying here, but I will keep is short and simple. If you want to get your company growing with increasing your sales, keep yourself focused and remember that not every prospect is really a customer.
Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws/
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com/
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates
http://teamcircle.ning.com/profile/HowardLarson
https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate
P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.
P.P.S. An American Company, marketing American Companies! Call or email to get an appointment to pick my brain (a $125.00 value) for 30 minutes.
Looking at the B2B world, as a posed to the B2C side of business, Sales cycles are probably longer, there is more limited brand recognition. Trying to keep that sales funnel full and running can be a nightmare for the B2B Marketing Manager. So what can you do to keep you from walking round with your tale between your legs?
1) Project Your Target Sale: B2B sales cycles are extended and dare right complicated. As the size of the company goes down the more confusing it gets because you are working with fewer bells and whistles and dollars to keep you on track and headed in the right direction. Prospects might be less familiar with you. Lots of times your entire marketing campaign is working in a hodge podge of erratic disjointed efforts that you hope can come together as one message. Stop, sit down and take a deep breath, Your marketing needs to be put together like a classic dance, a beautiful tango, filled with passion and love and you go on till the music has stopped. Most people don’t stop dancing until the song has ended, so too you’re marketing. Your prospects need to worm up to you over a period of time. They need to feel comfortable with you before starting the buying cycle. The question is how long is that cycle going to be?
2) Give More Than You Take: Instead of asking for the sale give your prospects something of value, first! If you are having quality interactions, posting value in your interactions and blogs, it your content is specific and helpful you are on the right track. Using and posting content marketing to educate your prospects about what is important to them (that you can help of solve for them) and giving a solution helps to take your prospects down the decision path, not the yellow brick road.
3) Short Is Good: Try to keep your content short as opposed to long. Even if your service or product is a completed sale KISS, Keep It Simple Stupid! The experts say no more than 45 lines (please don’t count the lines in my blog) and no graphics unless they hammer home a key point.
4) Have Measureable and Meaningful Objectives: No fluff, no embellishing, get to the point, quickly and directly. Then measure what you have done. There are more marketing automation tools out there, and many are free for the looking. Find them, down load them, and use them.
5) Ready, Fire, Aim. No!: Prospects are precious. They are not a throw away commodity. You don’t have time or money to mess up your message. You can run a split program if your list is big enough or your pockets have enough money or you can post two different marketing messages on different SM networking sites and wee which one gets the better pull.
6) The Customer Isn’t Always Right: Two things come to mind. The first by my sales mentor Hank Trisler, The customer might not always be right but they are still the customer, and the right customer is always right. You as a marketing need to know the difference between a right customer and a wrong customer. That is where nitching yourself as tight as you can helps you know the difference. Know your ideal customer. You want as few duds to go to your sales team as possible. There time is important also. They might see fewer leads but over the long run, they will have to work less and gain more, faster.
Larson Notes & Satire: There are a lot of things I could be saying here, but I will keep is short and simple. If you want to get your company growing with increasing your sales, keep yourself focused and remember that not every prospect is really a customer.
Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws/
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com/
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates
http://teamcircle.ning.com/profile/HowardLarson
https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate
P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.
P.P.S. An American Company, marketing American Companies! Call or email to get an appointment to pick my brain (a $125.00 value) for 30 minutes.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Should your Business Use a Telemarketing Company?
Telemarketers charge you money to do something most people & business owners think they know how to do themselves. Telemarketers can make and some take a large volume of calls on your company’s behalf. Then there is the question of doing it as in in-house function or outsourcing it all. Like everything, there is a good side and a bad side to making the decision as to whether to establish telemarketing in-house, or to trust it to an outsourced telemarketer.
Being a telemarketer this blog will focus for the most part on the outbound telemarketing.
Telemarketers, make different types of phone calls to generate sales, appointments of leads for your business. They can do direct sales, making leads, schedule appointments, verify information, and conduct research and surveys, it all depends on your business and what you need done at a given time. When considering outsourcing as a service, it is always good to look at the Call Center as an extension of you and your business; after all, they will be dealing with your customers who should have no idea that you have chosen to outsource (if they even know what that means) to a telemarketer. The following are factors to think about in developing and choosing a telemarketing division for your business.
Outsource, Of Course: The orchestration of a large, in-house telemarketing division for your company can be a huge investment. You would have to consider hiring new employees, finding space, providing furniture and other resources, and not to mention the beginning and on-going training that would have to be provided in order for the venture to hopefully become a success. Many businesses decide to outsource just to avoid the time and money it would take to establish their own telemarketing department.
Telemarketer providers can very easily handle a rapid or slower period of growth. They will have the resources ready to take on more people if the time of year or the growth of your business becomes a factor.
A Call Center will bring with them their experience (which you cannot put a price on- especially if your business has no prior experience in telemarketing). They can help with creating lists, scripts, running tests, and managing campaigns. In addition, the outsourcing firm will most likely have the hardware, software, manpower, and afore mentioned expertise to nicely complement your business. Then there is a good chance they have prior experience in dealing with a company like yours so they will know what works and what doesn’t work on the phone.
The Calm before the Search: Before jumping into the partnership with a Telemarketing firm, there are several things to consider. There are plenty of companies out here and you need to find the one that will make the best match for you and your business. Think about what you want your main objectives to be and what you want them to achieve with your program. Choose a firm with successful experience in dealing with other businesses in your industry; this way, they will not only have the prior success on their side, but can help with the development of the campaign.
You will need to properly estimate what your expected call volume will be. You would not want to come up with a number that is too high or too low to reflect what the reality will be; if so, the Telemarketer can handle the number of calls you need to have. In coming up with your number consider any peaks or valleys in calls that may deal with special sales, time of year, holidays, trade shows, new equipment, company growth, etc.
Like we work mainly with printers advertising companies, sign shops and other graphic companies, most, telemarketers have special areas of expertise whether it is in business type, technology, retail, education, etc., so you may want to see what will make for the best match for your company.
Offshore?: Many businesses have made the decision to adopt call centers that are located offshore (based out of the United States). Many companies have decided that off shoring is a solid business decision mainly because it has a low cost; but the legality and ethics of the situation have recently made their way into American headlines. As stated, it could be cheaper, dollar wise, to use an offshore call center, but is it in the long run? Rates can be as much as 25% lower than using a call center in the U.S. that is a complete replica. To reiterate, the ethics of the situation come into play because many businesses (whether they knew or not) have been tied in with some illegal activity in regards to not staying faithful to the laws upheld here in America. Industry and customer perception may come into play and going offshore will leave any company susceptible to negative reactions.
Communication issues can be a factor if you decide to outsource to offshore. Telemarketers with heavy accents may find it more difficult to have a conversation with your customers or they might just not like it knowing that you went out of the country. Usually, these places will have a formulaic script set up to make sure there is little communication breakdown, but this may be good or bad depending on the nature of your business. There are places such as Canada and the Caribbean Islands where you can still find some discounted benefits and where you will might find the communication issue not to be a problem but watch out people have a way of picking up accents and language more than you might want to think.
Which Telemarketer: Obviously, you need to keep your bottom line in mind while picking your telemarketing company. Depending on expected volume, the impending pricing may vary. The outsourced firm may charge your company per minute or per dedicated representative for instance. Pricing is very important, but don’t forget to remember that most likely your customers will make no distinction between your company and the voice on the other end of the line; your customers will think that they are dealing directly with your company, so finding a firm that will handle your calls with the same passion and desire for success should be something to be heavily considered despite the cost.
Experience as a company and in your particular field is something that should matter to you. This is a partnership, so you want to hire the best people for the job. You should look at the prior successes and reputations of any firms. As said before Telemarketers that have worked with your industry before can help you put together a more successful campaign and can help you foresee any problems that may arise during the course of the program before they happen.
Pricing: It has been mentioned that several factors will pour into just how much this campaign will cost your company. You have to consider the volume of calls, where the outsourced company is located, the type of project, technology needed, the expertise of the Telemarketer, etc. Many large telemarketing companies ask for a minimum work order. The minimum can range from 1,000 to 10,000 persons per project or will charge per call or number of calls per hour, which can range from $25 to $60 per hour.
How the outsourced company goes about paying their own employees will affect how they will in turn charge you. Some companies will offer commission to their workers, so the base hourly rate will most likely be lower (but higher if they do not offer commission). Other fees to consider involve initial set up costs (that could be in the several thousand), along with additional training, programming, reporting fees, etc., which leads into the next point.
Make sure that all fees and stipulations are clear before starting out with any outsourced firm. Depending on how successful your company becomes (or does not become) there may be additional fees due to your company’s straying away from the initial projections and project roll out. A non-disclosure clause in the initial contract is highly recommended, so this way they cannot take your company’s proprietary information along with them if they wind up working for one of your competitors (especially if the outsourced company specializes in your industry).
Tips to Get Rich: An outsourced firm that offers sales commissions to their Telemarketers should be more attractive because their workers are more likely going to be more highly motivated, and that is what you want your workers to be.
- The structure of a good script should not be overlooked. If the outsourced firm has worked in your industry on similar campaigns, then they can definitely help you orchestrate a successful one.
- If the nature of the calls warrants a callback, outsourced firms (if they are running an inbound program) usually offer an 800 number to set you up with. DO NOT take them up on this offer because it is much cheaper for you to establish your own. This way if things go sour, you do not have to worry about setting up another number (which can become confusing for clients and customers); you can simply use the same number while engaged in business with another provider.
Larson Notes & Satire: We are all different in how we handle and give our services. If you are thinking about doing some outsourcing of telemarketing or any kind of sales give me a call. I will be happy to answer your questions.
Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws/
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com/
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates
http://teamcircle.ning.com/profile/HowardLarson
https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate
P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.
P.P.S. An American Company, marketing American Companies! Call or email to get an appointment to pick my brain (a $125.00 value) for 30 minutes.
Being a telemarketer this blog will focus for the most part on the outbound telemarketing.
Telemarketers, make different types of phone calls to generate sales, appointments of leads for your business. They can do direct sales, making leads, schedule appointments, verify information, and conduct research and surveys, it all depends on your business and what you need done at a given time. When considering outsourcing as a service, it is always good to look at the Call Center as an extension of you and your business; after all, they will be dealing with your customers who should have no idea that you have chosen to outsource (if they even know what that means) to a telemarketer. The following are factors to think about in developing and choosing a telemarketing division for your business.
Outsource, Of Course: The orchestration of a large, in-house telemarketing division for your company can be a huge investment. You would have to consider hiring new employees, finding space, providing furniture and other resources, and not to mention the beginning and on-going training that would have to be provided in order for the venture to hopefully become a success. Many businesses decide to outsource just to avoid the time and money it would take to establish their own telemarketing department.
Telemarketer providers can very easily handle a rapid or slower period of growth. They will have the resources ready to take on more people if the time of year or the growth of your business becomes a factor.
A Call Center will bring with them their experience (which you cannot put a price on- especially if your business has no prior experience in telemarketing). They can help with creating lists, scripts, running tests, and managing campaigns. In addition, the outsourcing firm will most likely have the hardware, software, manpower, and afore mentioned expertise to nicely complement your business. Then there is a good chance they have prior experience in dealing with a company like yours so they will know what works and what doesn’t work on the phone.
The Calm before the Search: Before jumping into the partnership with a Telemarketing firm, there are several things to consider. There are plenty of companies out here and you need to find the one that will make the best match for you and your business. Think about what you want your main objectives to be and what you want them to achieve with your program. Choose a firm with successful experience in dealing with other businesses in your industry; this way, they will not only have the prior success on their side, but can help with the development of the campaign.
You will need to properly estimate what your expected call volume will be. You would not want to come up with a number that is too high or too low to reflect what the reality will be; if so, the Telemarketer can handle the number of calls you need to have. In coming up with your number consider any peaks or valleys in calls that may deal with special sales, time of year, holidays, trade shows, new equipment, company growth, etc.
Like we work mainly with printers advertising companies, sign shops and other graphic companies, most, telemarketers have special areas of expertise whether it is in business type, technology, retail, education, etc., so you may want to see what will make for the best match for your company.
Offshore?: Many businesses have made the decision to adopt call centers that are located offshore (based out of the United States). Many companies have decided that off shoring is a solid business decision mainly because it has a low cost; but the legality and ethics of the situation have recently made their way into American headlines. As stated, it could be cheaper, dollar wise, to use an offshore call center, but is it in the long run? Rates can be as much as 25% lower than using a call center in the U.S. that is a complete replica. To reiterate, the ethics of the situation come into play because many businesses (whether they knew or not) have been tied in with some illegal activity in regards to not staying faithful to the laws upheld here in America. Industry and customer perception may come into play and going offshore will leave any company susceptible to negative reactions.
Communication issues can be a factor if you decide to outsource to offshore. Telemarketers with heavy accents may find it more difficult to have a conversation with your customers or they might just not like it knowing that you went out of the country. Usually, these places will have a formulaic script set up to make sure there is little communication breakdown, but this may be good or bad depending on the nature of your business. There are places such as Canada and the Caribbean Islands where you can still find some discounted benefits and where you will might find the communication issue not to be a problem but watch out people have a way of picking up accents and language more than you might want to think.
Which Telemarketer: Obviously, you need to keep your bottom line in mind while picking your telemarketing company. Depending on expected volume, the impending pricing may vary. The outsourced firm may charge your company per minute or per dedicated representative for instance. Pricing is very important, but don’t forget to remember that most likely your customers will make no distinction between your company and the voice on the other end of the line; your customers will think that they are dealing directly with your company, so finding a firm that will handle your calls with the same passion and desire for success should be something to be heavily considered despite the cost.
Experience as a company and in your particular field is something that should matter to you. This is a partnership, so you want to hire the best people for the job. You should look at the prior successes and reputations of any firms. As said before Telemarketers that have worked with your industry before can help you put together a more successful campaign and can help you foresee any problems that may arise during the course of the program before they happen.
Pricing: It has been mentioned that several factors will pour into just how much this campaign will cost your company. You have to consider the volume of calls, where the outsourced company is located, the type of project, technology needed, the expertise of the Telemarketer, etc. Many large telemarketing companies ask for a minimum work order. The minimum can range from 1,000 to 10,000 persons per project or will charge per call or number of calls per hour, which can range from $25 to $60 per hour.
How the outsourced company goes about paying their own employees will affect how they will in turn charge you. Some companies will offer commission to their workers, so the base hourly rate will most likely be lower (but higher if they do not offer commission). Other fees to consider involve initial set up costs (that could be in the several thousand), along with additional training, programming, reporting fees, etc., which leads into the next point.
Make sure that all fees and stipulations are clear before starting out with any outsourced firm. Depending on how successful your company becomes (or does not become) there may be additional fees due to your company’s straying away from the initial projections and project roll out. A non-disclosure clause in the initial contract is highly recommended, so this way they cannot take your company’s proprietary information along with them if they wind up working for one of your competitors (especially if the outsourced company specializes in your industry).
Tips to Get Rich: An outsourced firm that offers sales commissions to their Telemarketers should be more attractive because their workers are more likely going to be more highly motivated, and that is what you want your workers to be.
- The structure of a good script should not be overlooked. If the outsourced firm has worked in your industry on similar campaigns, then they can definitely help you orchestrate a successful one.
- If the nature of the calls warrants a callback, outsourced firms (if they are running an inbound program) usually offer an 800 number to set you up with. DO NOT take them up on this offer because it is much cheaper for you to establish your own. This way if things go sour, you do not have to worry about setting up another number (which can become confusing for clients and customers); you can simply use the same number while engaged in business with another provider.
Larson Notes & Satire: We are all different in how we handle and give our services. If you are thinking about doing some outsourcing of telemarketing or any kind of sales give me a call. I will be happy to answer your questions.
Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws/
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com/
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates
http://teamcircle.ning.com/profile/HowardLarson
https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate
P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.
P.P.S. An American Company, marketing American Companies! Call or email to get an appointment to pick my brain (a $125.00 value) for 30 minutes.
Monday, August 16, 2010
Are you a White Hat or a Black Hat?
Search engine optimization, in as much as there are 2 sides to every issue, there are two hat colors to SEO, as with all things in life has a good, wholesome, fair and right way of doing things and a bad, unfair, downright bad way of doing things. To describe the two SEO methodologies the terms “White Hat” and “Black Hat” SEO have come about.
We are a white hat (for the most part) here at Larson’s believing that while black hat SEO techniques might have some short term positive effect, the long term implications can and will be disastrous for your website and in the long run, for your business. As in all things it is good to know the enemy.
So today, I’ll take a look at the top 5 black hat & the top 5 white hat SEO techniques to help you decide whether you or the SEO firm you’re using uses tactics that are potentially harmful to your business website and could either get you “kicked” out of their directories or elevate your site safely. After the black hat techniques we’ll take a look at the top 5 white hat SEO techniques that I believe and have found with my own site that have been having a positive effect on my search position without putting your business website at risk.
Top 5 Black Hat SEO Techniques
1. Hidden Content: At the top of our list of black hat SEO techniques is hidden content. Ooooooo... hidden content you say? Yes! Hidden content comes in many guises but the basic principle is that within the code for the site there will be content stuffed with keywords, this content will not be visible to the end user of the site. There are a few ways to do this.
One way of doing this is by using comment tags. The real purpose of comment tags is for developers to add in useful reminders within their code explaining what that piece of code does.
Another popular way of hiding content is the use of the noscript tag. The noscript tag should be used to inform a user that a script is being used but their browser either doesn’t support the script language used or they have that function turned off.
Other HMTL tags misused in similar ways include the noframes tag and hidden inputs in forms.
Content can also be hidden from the end user by using CSS, excessively small text and colored text on the same colored background of text with no color.
All of these techniques are frowned upon by search engines and if detected can mean your website will be penalized or banned. And yes they do ban sites out of their engines! To the untrained eye it can be very difficult to spot the use of some of these techniques.
2. Meta Keyword Stuffing: There are two Meta tags that are generally used to inform search engines of the content on the page. They reside between the head tag of a page and when used incorrectly they can alert a search engine that a site is using spam techniques in an attempt to improve its ranking.
Meta Description
The meta description should be used to describe the content of your page honestly and concisely and be 1 or 2 sentences, 3 at most.
Here’s an example of the Meta description being used in the correct manner,
meta name "description Content" Targeted telemarketing company. A telemarketing company that knows, understands and puts into practice targeted marketing programs designed to get new customers and build sales, fast. We make good companies great and great companies even better with telemarketing and targeted direct mail programs. Our focus is Printers, Advertising Agencies, Graphic Studios, Advertising Specialties, Trade Show Booth Builder, Sign Shops and other businesses in graphic and creative and related industries. We know you, we understand you, we can sell you!
Here’s an example of the Meta description tag being used incorrectly for a page promoting a telemarketing company called “MadeUp”,
meta name” description” content” MadeUp telemarketing website is the best MadeUp telemarketing website, our telemarketing is better than any telemarketing, great telemarketing, the best telemarketing, visit use us for telemarketing”
3. Meta Keywords: Meta Keywords should be a list of words that inform of the main focus of the page. Meta keywords have been so misused in the past that there are few if any search engines that take any heed of them.
Here’s an example of the Meta keywords being used in the correct manner,
meta name "keywords" Content" Telemarketing, Outbound Telemarketing, printing sales leads, outbound telemarketing service, us telemarketing company, outsourced sales force, business growth, Target Marketing, Target Marketing Service, direct mail programs, Wave Mailing Programs, Target Marketing Attack, direct mail, Guerrilla Marketing, b2b marketing, sales outsourcing, Chicago, United States, Illinois. Palatine, chicagoland, chicago metro, New account acquisition, nitch marketing, Advertising, Telesales, Postcards, Fulfillment, B2B, business two business, Trade Show Call Back, Orphan Account Selling, List Procurement, Multimedia Development, Search Engine Submission, Web site optimization, Web Site Design, virtual sales manager"
Here’s an example of the Meta keywords tag being used incorrectly for a page promoting the telemarketing company again called “MadeUp telemarketing”,
meta name keywords content / Telemarketing, telemarketing marketing, tele, tele-marketing, fast telemarketing, junk calls, phone ,phone sales, telephone sales, phoning, calling, MadeUp telemarketing, outbound calling ,inbound calling, sales, large account sales, big account telesales ,small account telesales ,best telemarketing, great telemarketing, exclusive telemarketing plans, day time telemarketing, phoning, calling, sales call, sales-call
4. Doorway or Gateway Pages: Doorway or Gateway pages are pages designed for search engines and not for the end user. They are basically fake pages that are stuffed with content and highly optimized for 1 or 2 keywords that link to a target or landing page. The end user never sees these pages because they are automatically redirected to the target page.
Off-the-shelf SEO software often encourages the use of gateway pages as do SEO firms that don’t know what they’re talking about. Search engine spiders are being enhanced continually to detect these pages and will get ignored or worse still, flag your site up as being spam and ban you all together.
It was once a very “white hat” to use Gateway pages in your SEO practice because the different engines acted and searched differently and needed a page that would optimize well with the way their engines spiders went though the content of a page to optimize it. Not so much anymore, you don’t need a different landing page for Google, Yahoo or Bing anymore.
5. Link Farming: In the real world if you were to build your house in a bad neighborhood then your house would be affected by its surroundings. The same is true of the virtual world. Link farms or free for all (FFA) pages have no other purposes than to list links of unrelated websites. They won’t provide you with any traffic and you run the risk of having your site banned for participating. Don’t participate in link farming. You may get a quick bump but you will receive a bad landing getting kicked off the search engines as a spam site or at best only getting downgraded in the search engines.
Top 5 White Hat SEO Techniques
1. Quality Content: When we first started looking at SEO as a separate entity to website build there was one phrase that we would continually hear, “content is King”, and it’s true. There is nothing more valuable you can do to optimize your site for search engines than offer unique well written content. A search engines aim is to serve up what it believes to be the most appropriate website for any given search to the end user.
Imagine we are the end user and we are searching for a telemarketing company in the United States. We go to our favorite search engine and search for the phrase “telemarketing company in the United States”. (If you’re looking for Larson in this search, I am sure we are out there but on what page I have no idea. More on word stings to get found later) In this imaginary scenario let’s assume there are only 2 websites that target that phrase,
Website 1: Website 1 consists of a single page with 3 paragraphs of text. The text tells us that the company does telemarketing work, is in the United States and gives us a phone number to call.
Website 2: Website 2 contains 30 plus pages all focusing on various telemarketing functions that we can hire, costs and technical explanations of how telemarketing can work for your business.
Which website do you think the search engine is likely to offer to the user first? It’s a rather obvious example but it illustrates the importance of good content so your priority should be good quality content.
2. Use Structural (Semantic) Mark Up and Separate Content from Presentation: Semantically structuring your mark up helps search engines understand the content of your webpage which is of course a good thing. Making proper use of heading elements is essential because search engines give more weight to the content within the heading elements.
Using CSS to separate the design elements from the content makes for much leaner code and makes it easier for search engines to find what they’re looking for, which is content. Remember content is king!
3. Titles and Meta Data: Providing pages with proper titles and Meta data is essential. As discussed in the top 5 black hat SEO techniques section the meta description and meta keywords elements have been so misused in the past that Search Engines now regard them as less important, it’s still important to use them and use them, just use them properly. Titles however still carry a lot of weight and when we think of semantic mark up it is obvious why. The title of anything is a declaration as to what the content might be, so make sure your page titles are a true representation of the content of the page.
4. Keyword Research and Effective Keyword Use: Create your website with keywords and key phrases in mind. Research keywords and key phrases you think people might use to find your site. Single words are not always the most effective target, try multi-word phrases that are much more specific to your product/service and you’ll be targeting end users that are much more likely to want what you are offering. Besides going after a one word “keyword” although it might be the holy grail of SEO is not the best to start out for your initial SEO marketing plan.
Use the keywords and key phrases you’ve identified effectively throughout your website. Assign each page 2-3 of the keywords you’ve identified and use the keywords throughout all the important elements of the page. Those are,
• Title
• Meta Description
• Meta Keywords
• Heading Elements
• Text
• Alt Tag
• Title Tag
• Links
5. Quality Inbound Links: Having inbound links to your website can be likened to having a vote for the good but there are good links and bad links so therefore votes for the good and votes that are bad. Good links are links from other web pages that are regarded highly by the search engines and are contextually relevant to the content of your page. Bad links are links from web pages that aren’t regarded highly or potentially banned by search engines and have no relevance to the content of your page.
For example;
Imagine we have a website that sells telephones.
Link A: Link on the homepage of the American Marketing website. = Good
Link B: Link on Eddies Bar appreciation links page = Bad
The amount of quality inbound links to your site therefore have some relevance on how high up the search engine your site is placed. When sourcing links you should be thinking of quality over quantity and deep linking to pages within your website not just the home page.
Larson Notes & Satire: To the untrained eye, identifying if your site is potentially at risk from black hat techniques can be difficult. When in doubt don’t do it. Went you need help, find someone who might know what they are doing. Mmmmmm, I wonder who that could be?
Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates
http://teamcircle.ning.com/profile/HowardLarson
https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate
P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.
P.P.S. An American Company, marketing American Companies! Call or email to get an appointment to pick my brain (a $125.00 value) for 30 minutes.
We are a white hat (for the most part) here at Larson’s believing that while black hat SEO techniques might have some short term positive effect, the long term implications can and will be disastrous for your website and in the long run, for your business. As in all things it is good to know the enemy.
So today, I’ll take a look at the top 5 black hat & the top 5 white hat SEO techniques to help you decide whether you or the SEO firm you’re using uses tactics that are potentially harmful to your business website and could either get you “kicked” out of their directories or elevate your site safely. After the black hat techniques we’ll take a look at the top 5 white hat SEO techniques that I believe and have found with my own site that have been having a positive effect on my search position without putting your business website at risk.
Top 5 Black Hat SEO Techniques
1. Hidden Content: At the top of our list of black hat SEO techniques is hidden content. Ooooooo... hidden content you say? Yes! Hidden content comes in many guises but the basic principle is that within the code for the site there will be content stuffed with keywords, this content will not be visible to the end user of the site. There are a few ways to do this.
One way of doing this is by using comment tags. The real purpose of comment tags is for developers to add in useful reminders within their code explaining what that piece of code does.
Another popular way of hiding content is the use of the noscript tag. The noscript tag should be used to inform a user that a script is being used but their browser either doesn’t support the script language used or they have that function turned off.
Other HMTL tags misused in similar ways include the noframes tag and hidden inputs in forms.
Content can also be hidden from the end user by using CSS, excessively small text and colored text on the same colored background of text with no color.
All of these techniques are frowned upon by search engines and if detected can mean your website will be penalized or banned. And yes they do ban sites out of their engines! To the untrained eye it can be very difficult to spot the use of some of these techniques.
2. Meta Keyword Stuffing: There are two Meta tags that are generally used to inform search engines of the content on the page. They reside between the head tag of a page and when used incorrectly they can alert a search engine that a site is using spam techniques in an attempt to improve its ranking.
Meta Description
The meta description should be used to describe the content of your page honestly and concisely and be 1 or 2 sentences, 3 at most.
Here’s an example of the Meta description being used in the correct manner,
meta name "description Content" Targeted telemarketing company. A telemarketing company that knows, understands and puts into practice targeted marketing programs designed to get new customers and build sales, fast. We make good companies great and great companies even better with telemarketing and targeted direct mail programs. Our focus is Printers, Advertising Agencies, Graphic Studios, Advertising Specialties, Trade Show Booth Builder, Sign Shops and other businesses in graphic and creative and related industries. We know you, we understand you, we can sell you!
Here’s an example of the Meta description tag being used incorrectly for a page promoting a telemarketing company called “MadeUp”,
meta name” description” content” MadeUp telemarketing website is the best MadeUp telemarketing website, our telemarketing is better than any telemarketing, great telemarketing, the best telemarketing, visit use us for telemarketing”
3. Meta Keywords: Meta Keywords should be a list of words that inform of the main focus of the page. Meta keywords have been so misused in the past that there are few if any search engines that take any heed of them.
Here’s an example of the Meta keywords being used in the correct manner,
meta name "keywords" Content" Telemarketing, Outbound Telemarketing, printing sales leads, outbound telemarketing service, us telemarketing company, outsourced sales force, business growth, Target Marketing, Target Marketing Service, direct mail programs, Wave Mailing Programs, Target Marketing Attack, direct mail, Guerrilla Marketing, b2b marketing, sales outsourcing, Chicago, United States, Illinois. Palatine, chicagoland, chicago metro, New account acquisition, nitch marketing, Advertising, Telesales, Postcards, Fulfillment, B2B, business two business, Trade Show Call Back, Orphan Account Selling, List Procurement, Multimedia Development, Search Engine Submission, Web site optimization, Web Site Design, virtual sales manager"
Here’s an example of the Meta keywords tag being used incorrectly for a page promoting the telemarketing company again called “MadeUp telemarketing”,
meta name keywords content / Telemarketing, telemarketing marketing, tele, tele-marketing, fast telemarketing, junk calls, phone ,phone sales, telephone sales, phoning, calling, MadeUp telemarketing, outbound calling ,inbound calling, sales, large account sales, big account telesales ,small account telesales ,best telemarketing, great telemarketing, exclusive telemarketing plans, day time telemarketing, phoning, calling, sales call, sales-call
4. Doorway or Gateway Pages: Doorway or Gateway pages are pages designed for search engines and not for the end user. They are basically fake pages that are stuffed with content and highly optimized for 1 or 2 keywords that link to a target or landing page. The end user never sees these pages because they are automatically redirected to the target page.
Off-the-shelf SEO software often encourages the use of gateway pages as do SEO firms that don’t know what they’re talking about. Search engine spiders are being enhanced continually to detect these pages and will get ignored or worse still, flag your site up as being spam and ban you all together.
It was once a very “white hat” to use Gateway pages in your SEO practice because the different engines acted and searched differently and needed a page that would optimize well with the way their engines spiders went though the content of a page to optimize it. Not so much anymore, you don’t need a different landing page for Google, Yahoo or Bing anymore.
5. Link Farming: In the real world if you were to build your house in a bad neighborhood then your house would be affected by its surroundings. The same is true of the virtual world. Link farms or free for all (FFA) pages have no other purposes than to list links of unrelated websites. They won’t provide you with any traffic and you run the risk of having your site banned for participating. Don’t participate in link farming. You may get a quick bump but you will receive a bad landing getting kicked off the search engines as a spam site or at best only getting downgraded in the search engines.
Top 5 White Hat SEO Techniques
1. Quality Content: When we first started looking at SEO as a separate entity to website build there was one phrase that we would continually hear, “content is King”, and it’s true. There is nothing more valuable you can do to optimize your site for search engines than offer unique well written content. A search engines aim is to serve up what it believes to be the most appropriate website for any given search to the end user.
Imagine we are the end user and we are searching for a telemarketing company in the United States. We go to our favorite search engine and search for the phrase “telemarketing company in the United States”. (If you’re looking for Larson in this search, I am sure we are out there but on what page I have no idea. More on word stings to get found later) In this imaginary scenario let’s assume there are only 2 websites that target that phrase,
Website 1: Website 1 consists of a single page with 3 paragraphs of text. The text tells us that the company does telemarketing work, is in the United States and gives us a phone number to call.
Website 2: Website 2 contains 30 plus pages all focusing on various telemarketing functions that we can hire, costs and technical explanations of how telemarketing can work for your business.
Which website do you think the search engine is likely to offer to the user first? It’s a rather obvious example but it illustrates the importance of good content so your priority should be good quality content.
2. Use Structural (Semantic) Mark Up and Separate Content from Presentation: Semantically structuring your mark up helps search engines understand the content of your webpage which is of course a good thing. Making proper use of heading elements is essential because search engines give more weight to the content within the heading elements.
Using CSS to separate the design elements from the content makes for much leaner code and makes it easier for search engines to find what they’re looking for, which is content. Remember content is king!
3. Titles and Meta Data: Providing pages with proper titles and Meta data is essential. As discussed in the top 5 black hat SEO techniques section the meta description and meta keywords elements have been so misused in the past that Search Engines now regard them as less important, it’s still important to use them and use them, just use them properly. Titles however still carry a lot of weight and when we think of semantic mark up it is obvious why. The title of anything is a declaration as to what the content might be, so make sure your page titles are a true representation of the content of the page.
4. Keyword Research and Effective Keyword Use: Create your website with keywords and key phrases in mind. Research keywords and key phrases you think people might use to find your site. Single words are not always the most effective target, try multi-word phrases that are much more specific to your product/service and you’ll be targeting end users that are much more likely to want what you are offering. Besides going after a one word “keyword” although it might be the holy grail of SEO is not the best to start out for your initial SEO marketing plan.
Use the keywords and key phrases you’ve identified effectively throughout your website. Assign each page 2-3 of the keywords you’ve identified and use the keywords throughout all the important elements of the page. Those are,
• Title
• Meta Description
• Meta Keywords
• Heading Elements
• Text
• Alt Tag
• Title Tag
• Links
5. Quality Inbound Links: Having inbound links to your website can be likened to having a vote for the good but there are good links and bad links so therefore votes for the good and votes that are bad. Good links are links from other web pages that are regarded highly by the search engines and are contextually relevant to the content of your page. Bad links are links from web pages that aren’t regarded highly or potentially banned by search engines and have no relevance to the content of your page.
For example;
Imagine we have a website that sells telephones.
Link A: Link on the homepage of the American Marketing website. = Good
Link B: Link on Eddies Bar appreciation links page = Bad
The amount of quality inbound links to your site therefore have some relevance on how high up the search engine your site is placed. When sourcing links you should be thinking of quality over quantity and deep linking to pages within your website not just the home page.
Larson Notes & Satire: To the untrained eye, identifying if your site is potentially at risk from black hat techniques can be difficult. When in doubt don’t do it. Went you need help, find someone who might know what they are doing. Mmmmmm, I wonder who that could be?
Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates
http://teamcircle.ning.com/profile/HowardLarson
https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate
P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.
P.P.S. An American Company, marketing American Companies! Call or email to get an appointment to pick my brain (a $125.00 value) for 30 minutes.
Friday, August 13, 2010
7 Ways to Boost Your Web Site Rankings
There are many simple ways to boost your rankings in search engines so that more people will visit your web site. Some search engine optimization (SEO) methods are out-dated and others are just plain shady.
We will discuss seven of the best organic “white-hat” methods of SEO: things you can do for free to achieve higher search rankings (rather than paid options such as pay-per-click advertising).
For those of you who don’t know “white hat” methods are nice, good, wholesome, fair and right ways of doing things and ate ones the Googles, Yahoos and the Bings of the world approve of. “Black Hat” methods are the bad, unfair, downright naughty way of doing things. Note to self: write a blog on White hat and Black hat ideas.
1) KEYWORDS: Choose and Use your keywords wisely! It is extremely important to research what keywords are best to use on your web site. Google Ad Words can provide a very good keyword research tool that will show you the amount of competition for particular keywords and phrases. It is best to choose keywords that are searched frequently, while at the same time avoiding so of the competition in your market nitch. These keywords should be relevant, and applicable to your page content. Good keywords in the domain name, page titles, headings, and alt text are helpful, but should not be overused. Overuse can cause your site to be flagged as spam, and get you booted out of the search engine!
2) METATAGS Utilizing key tags in the head section of your web pages can greatly change how well a site ranks in search engines. It is important to always include a different page title for every page of your site, with a unique page description with a meta tag description, which summarizes the page content. The description metadata is very important for search rankings, and should utilize the keywords for that specific page while never being identical on any of your other pages.
3) SITE STRUCTURE Some of the highly ranked sites have innovative technology, which requires advanced programmers. If your site has web apps that offer software type functionality in a web site, then you have an obvious advantage. However, simple SEO techniques such as utilizing Google Webmaster Tools can do wonders to raise your SEO score. Many free tools are available to generate XML sitemaps (an index of your web site, in XML format which you can submit to search engines to help direct their crawling of your site.
4) INTERNAL LINKS: Websites indirectly tell the search engines which pages are most important for visitors (and for which keywords) by having more internal links to those pages on their site (links within a site to other pages on the site). Placing the keywords of the target page in the link that points to that page will also help. You may make use of the “no follow” tag on links that are not important for SEO purposes (such as the legal disclaimer) to help search engines direct visitors to other more important pages.
5) EXTERNAL LINKS: One of the largest factors in SEO is to have quality links from related websites (with similar keywords) pointing at your site. For example, if Facebook were to post a link to your site on their homepage, then you would see a huge spike in visitors. Having quality links from high-ranking sites will boost your site towards the top of search engine results. Probably the best method to earn quality links is to offer quality content that people truly want. Posting content on the social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. can boost your visitors and inbound links. Just make sure you check and fix the site for any broken links on a regular basis.
6) CONTENT: As stated previously, the best way to attract visitors and quality inbound links is with good content that people want to consume. Updating page content on a regular basis tells search engines that they need to frequently visit your site for new stuff, and lets visitors know they can expect new content once in a while. Static pages that change once a year will not drive people to come back to your site frequently. However, integrating a blog with regular posts (http://www.larsonassociates.ws/Larsonssalesmarketingblog ) is an excellent way to drive visitors to your site to find new content. Unique and original content that people like will attract visitors and get you needed inbound links, as well as get the attention of the search engines. Simple isn’t it? Have quality content… get quality results. Dud.
7) INTERACTIVE MEDIA: Studies show that computer users prefer video and other impressive multimedia. You-Tube and Hulu are popular sites with streaming video, and Internet users spend hours playing interactive games on Facebook. Many prefer watching a video tutorial than studying a book – and enjoy streaming a TV show with one commercial to regular TV shows with twelve. People tend to link to media fast, so use media to your advantage.
Larson Notes & Satire: So how do you stack up? How many of the big 7 are you using? I would guess I’m a 5.5 on a 7 point scale. I am slowly seeing my site raise up in both the rankings, and popularity (hits). I view it as I work in process, Where my marketing plan and my business plan and my sales plan all start to come together to being in qualified leads to become customers, and isn’t that what it is all really about, turning leads into sales?
Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates
http://teamcircle.ning.com/profile/HowardLarson
https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate
P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.
P.P.S. An American Company, marketing American Companies! Call or email to get an appointment to pick my brain (a $125.00 value) for 30 minutes.
We will discuss seven of the best organic “white-hat” methods of SEO: things you can do for free to achieve higher search rankings (rather than paid options such as pay-per-click advertising).
For those of you who don’t know “white hat” methods are nice, good, wholesome, fair and right ways of doing things and ate ones the Googles, Yahoos and the Bings of the world approve of. “Black Hat” methods are the bad, unfair, downright naughty way of doing things. Note to self: write a blog on White hat and Black hat ideas.
1) KEYWORDS: Choose and Use your keywords wisely! It is extremely important to research what keywords are best to use on your web site. Google Ad Words can provide a very good keyword research tool that will show you the amount of competition for particular keywords and phrases. It is best to choose keywords that are searched frequently, while at the same time avoiding so of the competition in your market nitch. These keywords should be relevant, and applicable to your page content. Good keywords in the domain name, page titles, headings, and alt text are helpful, but should not be overused. Overuse can cause your site to be flagged as spam, and get you booted out of the search engine!
2) METATAGS Utilizing key tags in the head section of your web pages can greatly change how well a site ranks in search engines. It is important to always include a different page title for every page of your site, with a unique page description with a meta tag description, which summarizes the page content. The description metadata is very important for search rankings, and should utilize the keywords for that specific page while never being identical on any of your other pages.
3) SITE STRUCTURE Some of the highly ranked sites have innovative technology, which requires advanced programmers. If your site has web apps that offer software type functionality in a web site, then you have an obvious advantage. However, simple SEO techniques such as utilizing Google Webmaster Tools can do wonders to raise your SEO score. Many free tools are available to generate XML sitemaps (an index of your web site, in XML format which you can submit to search engines to help direct their crawling of your site.
4) INTERNAL LINKS: Websites indirectly tell the search engines which pages are most important for visitors (and for which keywords) by having more internal links to those pages on their site (links within a site to other pages on the site). Placing the keywords of the target page in the link that points to that page will also help. You may make use of the “no follow” tag on links that are not important for SEO purposes (such as the legal disclaimer) to help search engines direct visitors to other more important pages.
5) EXTERNAL LINKS: One of the largest factors in SEO is to have quality links from related websites (with similar keywords) pointing at your site. For example, if Facebook were to post a link to your site on their homepage, then you would see a huge spike in visitors. Having quality links from high-ranking sites will boost your site towards the top of search engine results. Probably the best method to earn quality links is to offer quality content that people truly want. Posting content on the social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. can boost your visitors and inbound links. Just make sure you check and fix the site for any broken links on a regular basis.
6) CONTENT: As stated previously, the best way to attract visitors and quality inbound links is with good content that people want to consume. Updating page content on a regular basis tells search engines that they need to frequently visit your site for new stuff, and lets visitors know they can expect new content once in a while. Static pages that change once a year will not drive people to come back to your site frequently. However, integrating a blog with regular posts (http://www.larsonassociates.ws/Larsonssalesmarketingblog ) is an excellent way to drive visitors to your site to find new content. Unique and original content that people like will attract visitors and get you needed inbound links, as well as get the attention of the search engines. Simple isn’t it? Have quality content… get quality results. Dud.
7) INTERACTIVE MEDIA: Studies show that computer users prefer video and other impressive multimedia. You-Tube and Hulu are popular sites with streaming video, and Internet users spend hours playing interactive games on Facebook. Many prefer watching a video tutorial than studying a book – and enjoy streaming a TV show with one commercial to regular TV shows with twelve. People tend to link to media fast, so use media to your advantage.
Larson Notes & Satire: So how do you stack up? How many of the big 7 are you using? I would guess I’m a 5.5 on a 7 point scale. I am slowly seeing my site raise up in both the rankings, and popularity (hits). I view it as I work in process, Where my marketing plan and my business plan and my sales plan all start to come together to being in qualified leads to become customers, and isn’t that what it is all really about, turning leads into sales?
Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates
http://teamcircle.ning.com/profile/HowardLarson
https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate
P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.
P.P.S. An American Company, marketing American Companies! Call or email to get an appointment to pick my brain (a $125.00 value) for 30 minutes.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Real Real-Time SEO
Ok let’s get real about real-time search engine optimization. For just over a year now Goggle has been mixing social media content into its regular search results. If you do a key word search on something that is a current event you will see some SM sites popping up as the story unwinds. Well now Yahoo and Bing have jumped into the foray and now are doing real-time search. So if real-time was not important a month ago, well guess what, now it is!
The BP oil spill, the Toyota recalls, the postal increases, unemployment, foreclosures, healthcare all were and are being played out in real-time search.
So now I ask you, can you afford not to be working harder at your Social Media Marketing? If you are hammering out your message in a timely fashion they will find you.
There are 2 sides to the web, each running parallel to each other. One is the web world we all know and love where you post your site and it gets found. The other is one that keeps pace with what is happing in the world NOW. With the crawler-based logarithms pairing down though human driven social media useful content, reputation and timely ideas are picked up. This is a big move from the way search engines were looking at content. When you stop and think that 40% of all search quires have an element of time attached to them, the Search Company’s had to come to the realization that they needed to keep up as well. I mean when you want airline ticket prices to Arizona today you don’t want prices form a month ago. Who wants unemployment figures form a year ago? No, you want current up-to-date figures. When you what the scores of yesterdays baseball games you don’t want to see the scores from August 11, 2009, do you? Besides the White Sox won yesterday so bring it on!
You might want to move away from your Web Analytic reports and see how the search engine results actually come out when you do the key word searches. You might find some interesting patterns coming up. I know I do some keyword searches on myself every week, just for fun.
So you want to beef up your SM to get you into the real-time search game? First you need to investigate the environment to see it there is any justification for you to be doing it in your related field. Then see what is flying around about the kind of service or product you supply, does it fit? If you think it is worth it, then check for the freshness of your content. If for example you’re in the lawn business you might what to hammer in some seasonal terms to spike the interest of the crawlers. (No not night crawlers, well maybe yes, but not the kind I want to use to go fishing) Be ready to grab a hold of any opportunity that presents itself.
Now even though this is real-time search with a NOW kind of thinking, you need a long-term plan. You can mold your message around special moments in time, but you need to be marketing continuously in the social media movement, interacting, and responding to the communities, on a regular bases for you to have any long lasting results. Real-time search needs real time commitment. It use to all be about links, links in, links out, reciprocal links (links are still important and if you have a site and want to trade links with me let me know) but now it’s about the socialness of what is important to your customers, your prospects and the world at large
Larson Notes & Satire: It is sort of funny, or maybe it’s not, but about the same time that Yahoo and Bing started doing real-time search, my web site hits started going off the charts. I’m talking going up 900% in hits off the charts. I worked out a growth plan for the year and amazing enough I am right on target. I worked out my marketing plan or reformatted it a year ago this month and have held true to the plan and the budget I set for it. I redid my companies positioning structure 14 months ago and am gaining in the exact target base I want to be in. So I have and will stay on my plan and course of action. I will be a Big fish in a Little pond. It’s a sound strategy is working and working very well ty.
If your strategy is not working see my p.s. offer below. 30 minutes of Me, for free.
Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates
https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate
P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.
P.P.S. An American Company, marketing American Companies! Call or email to get an appointment to pick my brain (a $125.00 value) for 30 minutes.
The BP oil spill, the Toyota recalls, the postal increases, unemployment, foreclosures, healthcare all were and are being played out in real-time search.
So now I ask you, can you afford not to be working harder at your Social Media Marketing? If you are hammering out your message in a timely fashion they will find you.
There are 2 sides to the web, each running parallel to each other. One is the web world we all know and love where you post your site and it gets found. The other is one that keeps pace with what is happing in the world NOW. With the crawler-based logarithms pairing down though human driven social media useful content, reputation and timely ideas are picked up. This is a big move from the way search engines were looking at content. When you stop and think that 40% of all search quires have an element of time attached to them, the Search Company’s had to come to the realization that they needed to keep up as well. I mean when you want airline ticket prices to Arizona today you don’t want prices form a month ago. Who wants unemployment figures form a year ago? No, you want current up-to-date figures. When you what the scores of yesterdays baseball games you don’t want to see the scores from August 11, 2009, do you? Besides the White Sox won yesterday so bring it on!
You might want to move away from your Web Analytic reports and see how the search engine results actually come out when you do the key word searches. You might find some interesting patterns coming up. I know I do some keyword searches on myself every week, just for fun.
So you want to beef up your SM to get you into the real-time search game? First you need to investigate the environment to see it there is any justification for you to be doing it in your related field. Then see what is flying around about the kind of service or product you supply, does it fit? If you think it is worth it, then check for the freshness of your content. If for example you’re in the lawn business you might what to hammer in some seasonal terms to spike the interest of the crawlers. (No not night crawlers, well maybe yes, but not the kind I want to use to go fishing) Be ready to grab a hold of any opportunity that presents itself.
Now even though this is real-time search with a NOW kind of thinking, you need a long-term plan. You can mold your message around special moments in time, but you need to be marketing continuously in the social media movement, interacting, and responding to the communities, on a regular bases for you to have any long lasting results. Real-time search needs real time commitment. It use to all be about links, links in, links out, reciprocal links (links are still important and if you have a site and want to trade links with me let me know) but now it’s about the socialness of what is important to your customers, your prospects and the world at large
Larson Notes & Satire: It is sort of funny, or maybe it’s not, but about the same time that Yahoo and Bing started doing real-time search, my web site hits started going off the charts. I’m talking going up 900% in hits off the charts. I worked out a growth plan for the year and amazing enough I am right on target. I worked out my marketing plan or reformatted it a year ago this month and have held true to the plan and the budget I set for it. I redid my companies positioning structure 14 months ago and am gaining in the exact target base I want to be in. So I have and will stay on my plan and course of action. I will be a Big fish in a Little pond. It’s a sound strategy is working and working very well ty.
If your strategy is not working see my p.s. offer below. 30 minutes of Me, for free.
Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates
https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate
P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.
P.P.S. An American Company, marketing American Companies! Call or email to get an appointment to pick my brain (a $125.00 value) for 30 minutes.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
B2B ROT (Return On Tweet)
Out of nearly 400 US Business Marketers 66% said that they are satisfied with the ROI of their twittering. The amazing thing is that 70% of these marketers spend only 30 minutes or less a day on twitter. 4 out of 5 marketers also said that they could not directly attribute any revenue to the micro-blogging site.
Some think that the effectiveness and relevance of twitter will fade over time but they are still out there pushing out their businesses messages. To the enthusiasts that are heavy twitters, they find that 20% attribute very tangible results and more than 1/3rd are more than satisfied with the return. Funny (not) how these successful Twitter marketers are more optimistic about Twitter’s future.
Not surprising, it was found that those marketers who are generating revenue thru Twitter are and get more active. Surprise, surprise, surprise. Some say (see below under Notes and satire) that Twitter is now more effective at driving traffic to a web site than SEM (search engine marketing). If that is true, how can you put a value on pushing out those tweets?
Half the people twit only once every other day, and quite a few are found to only be on twitter once a week. So if you’re not a daily twitter you’re not alone.
The most interesting thing, or is it, is that very few people are reporting that they had a way to do any kind of ROI on Twitter. Yes it’s the old guestament calculation.
* Twitter in B2B Marketing May 12-May 24, 592 completed surveys, Zoomerang
Larson Notes & Satire: Well I am one of those 34% of the people how do not like my ROI of tweeting. Not that I’ll stop mind you, but I want some return. But then, (this is the pause that refreshens) my web site hits are up over 900% over the last 5 weeks. Could this be attributed to twitter and posting my web site URL out there 12 or more times a day? I do know it’s not from keyword search because I’m so low unless I do a key word string or at least 4 words picked carefully in a word search I am so far back it’s not funny. Since real-time search started happening about a year ago (now yahoo and bing are doing some real-time search, not just google) the web game has started changing. Granted I’m not on the first 3 pages of an organic search, but somewhere someone is finding me and hitting on me.
Or is it my blogging. You are reading this so you know I blog, yet, but my blogging has been down a little (from 5 blogs a week to maybe 3) over the last 2 months but is it just that it is catching up with my past efforts?
Whatever it is, I must be doing something right and the even better thing is that is starting to translate into sales. Real sales! Yes money! And as good capitalist, I don’t keep score buy how many hits my web site gets or the number or retweets my follows give me or the number for “friends” & “followers” I have (not that that is not important) but by the number of sales I earn and the dollar amount of those sales in a given week or month.
So again I ask myself, am I happy with the ROI from twitter, I just don’t know, I just don’t know but just don’t ask me to stop what I’m doing. See me at https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate .
Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates
http://teamcircle.ning.com/profile/HowardLarson
https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate
P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.
P.P.S. An American Company, marketing American Companies! Call or email to get an appointment to pick my brain (a $125.00 value) for 30 minutes.
Some think that the effectiveness and relevance of twitter will fade over time but they are still out there pushing out their businesses messages. To the enthusiasts that are heavy twitters, they find that 20% attribute very tangible results and more than 1/3rd are more than satisfied with the return. Funny (not) how these successful Twitter marketers are more optimistic about Twitter’s future.
Not surprising, it was found that those marketers who are generating revenue thru Twitter are and get more active. Surprise, surprise, surprise. Some say (see below under Notes and satire) that Twitter is now more effective at driving traffic to a web site than SEM (search engine marketing). If that is true, how can you put a value on pushing out those tweets?
Half the people twit only once every other day, and quite a few are found to only be on twitter once a week. So if you’re not a daily twitter you’re not alone.
The most interesting thing, or is it, is that very few people are reporting that they had a way to do any kind of ROI on Twitter. Yes it’s the old guestament calculation.
* Twitter in B2B Marketing May 12-May 24, 592 completed surveys, Zoomerang
Larson Notes & Satire: Well I am one of those 34% of the people how do not like my ROI of tweeting. Not that I’ll stop mind you, but I want some return. But then, (this is the pause that refreshens) my web site hits are up over 900% over the last 5 weeks. Could this be attributed to twitter and posting my web site URL out there 12 or more times a day? I do know it’s not from keyword search because I’m so low unless I do a key word string or at least 4 words picked carefully in a word search I am so far back it’s not funny. Since real-time search started happening about a year ago (now yahoo and bing are doing some real-time search, not just google) the web game has started changing. Granted I’m not on the first 3 pages of an organic search, but somewhere someone is finding me and hitting on me.
Or is it my blogging. You are reading this so you know I blog, yet, but my blogging has been down a little (from 5 blogs a week to maybe 3) over the last 2 months but is it just that it is catching up with my past efforts?
Whatever it is, I must be doing something right and the even better thing is that is starting to translate into sales. Real sales! Yes money! And as good capitalist, I don’t keep score buy how many hits my web site gets or the number or retweets my follows give me or the number for “friends” & “followers” I have (not that that is not important) but by the number of sales I earn and the dollar amount of those sales in a given week or month.
So again I ask myself, am I happy with the ROI from twitter, I just don’t know, I just don’t know but just don’t ask me to stop what I’m doing. See me at https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate .
Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates
http://teamcircle.ning.com/profile/HowardLarson
https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate
P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.
P.P.S. An American Company, marketing American Companies! Call or email to get an appointment to pick my brain (a $125.00 value) for 30 minutes.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Online Marketing Automation
Online Marketing Success
(1 to 5 with 5 being the most important)
Click-through rate
1 – 5%
2 – 12%
3 – 30%
4 – 41%
5 – 12%
Web traffic hits
1 – 5%
2 – 16%
3 – 32%
4 – 36%
5 – 12%
Marketing qualified Leads
1 – 1%
2 – 3%
3 – 15%
4 – 41%
5 – 40%
Revenue
1 – 2%
2 – 2%
3 – 10%
4 – 26%
5 – 61%
Source: B to B Analytics Survey and the Web Analytics Association 2010
Did not like what I saw out of this survey. I like the revenue number because without money nothing happens, but that is (to me) more a sales function but if I had an online store and shopping cart attached it would become much more important so keep in mind my perspective. In my company, I expect marketing to be bringing in qualified leads to my sales department. If that means web site hits then get hitting. Bring me the Frank Thomas, Willie Mays and Mark McGwire of the Web! Online nothing happens without a hit. So after all is said and done I have to give my highest score to Web site hits.
Automation priorities for Marketing
4.4 – Lead management
4.2 - CRM
4.0 – Campaign management
4.0 – Database marketing
3.1 - Social media metrics
2.8 – Marketing asset management
2.5 – Marketing resource management
* Source: IDC’s Technology Marketing Barometer, IDC 2010
If you had to pick out want to automate and you could not do it all what would you really pick? I have to agree with the finding and rate Lead management tops integrated into a CRM system.
Larson Notes & Satire: Some things can and should be put on auto other items on the marketer’s plate should be done manual to keep a good solid hands on feel. Of course I like to get in and get my hands dirty so always lean more to the side of hands on non-automatic but there is a time and place like... maybe some automation is not a bad thing after all, and just to more analytical studying of the results. Yes the old dog can learn new tricks, like fetch, maybe?
Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates
http://teamcircle.ning.com/profile/HowardLarson
https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate
P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.
P.P.S. An American Company, marketing American Companies! Call or email to get an appointment to pick my brain (a $125.00 value) for 30 minutes.
(1 to 5 with 5 being the most important)
Click-through rate
1 – 5%
2 – 12%
3 – 30%
4 – 41%
5 – 12%
Web traffic hits
1 – 5%
2 – 16%
3 – 32%
4 – 36%
5 – 12%
Marketing qualified Leads
1 – 1%
2 – 3%
3 – 15%
4 – 41%
5 – 40%
Revenue
1 – 2%
2 – 2%
3 – 10%
4 – 26%
5 – 61%
Source: B to B Analytics Survey and the Web Analytics Association 2010
Did not like what I saw out of this survey. I like the revenue number because without money nothing happens, but that is (to me) more a sales function but if I had an online store and shopping cart attached it would become much more important so keep in mind my perspective. In my company, I expect marketing to be bringing in qualified leads to my sales department. If that means web site hits then get hitting. Bring me the Frank Thomas, Willie Mays and Mark McGwire of the Web! Online nothing happens without a hit. So after all is said and done I have to give my highest score to Web site hits.
Automation priorities for Marketing
4.4 – Lead management
4.2 - CRM
4.0 – Campaign management
4.0 – Database marketing
3.1 - Social media metrics
2.8 – Marketing asset management
2.5 – Marketing resource management
* Source: IDC’s Technology Marketing Barometer, IDC 2010
If you had to pick out want to automate and you could not do it all what would you really pick? I have to agree with the finding and rate Lead management tops integrated into a CRM system.
Larson Notes & Satire: Some things can and should be put on auto other items on the marketer’s plate should be done manual to keep a good solid hands on feel. Of course I like to get in and get my hands dirty so always lean more to the side of hands on non-automatic but there is a time and place like... maybe some automation is not a bad thing after all, and just to more analytical studying of the results. Yes the old dog can learn new tricks, like fetch, maybe?
Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates
http://teamcircle.ning.com/profile/HowardLarson
https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate
P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.
P.P.S. An American Company, marketing American Companies! Call or email to get an appointment to pick my brain (a $125.00 value) for 30 minutes.
Monday, August 9, 2010
Marketing to Sales Handoff?
Marketing Department Goals
(1 to 5 with 5 being the most important)
To Raise Awareness
1 – 0%
2 – 5%
3 – 15%
4 – 38%
5 – 40%
To serve as voice of the company
1 – 2%
2 – 9%
3 – 25%
4 – 34%
5 – 31%
To drive qualified Leads
1 – 1%
2 – 2%
3 – 12%
4 – 33%
5 – 52%
To nurture leads
1 – 3%
2 – 11%
3 – 27%
4 – 38%
5 – 21%
Source: B to B Analytics Survey and the Web Analytics Association 2010
I think the big question here is; are you a Marketing oriented person with sales tendencies or a Sales oriented person with marketing tendencies?
Marketing to Sales handoff
58% - Involvement never ends but the type and volume of engagement changes
16% - Once leads have been qualified and scored
10% - Once a program has started to generate leads
8% - Once a lead has been nurtured and shows strong buying intent
5% - Once the ad, tactic or program goes live or has been deployed
3% - Once a sale has been completed
1% - Other
* Source: 2010 Outlook: Marketing Priorities and Plans
The age old question of when a marketing department should hand off the lead to the sales department has not ended with the advent of Social Media Marketing but rather intensified it
Larson Notes & Satire: So are you the sales guy or the marketing person? Whichever way you lean is how you will probable rate the above functions. As an owner, marketing never stops but serves as a function of being in qualified sales leads to the sales department for them to close on. The two are not separate but must be joined at the hip to propel the companies close deals. If you are letting them operate in a dysfunctional way you are losing valuable synergy. My feeling is that marketing should be handing off the lead to sales ASAP so they can do what they do best, being the prospect into the fold as a customer. In every business there is a sales cycle. The sooner you get the prospect into that cycle the better. Another key point here is that Marketing’s function is not to close sales but to get the word out and make awareness. Marketing can still push out to a prospect even while sales is working on them, but there needs to be a hand off. There can be 3 parts to your marketing attach, presales marketing, during-sales marketing and after-sales marketing.
If your marketing people and your sales people are talking to each other they can complement each other and make life a whole lot easier for each other. If they don’t talk, you got a message nightmare that can be giving out 5 or 6 messages at the same time to the same people. To this I have only 2 words: Good Luck!
Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate
P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.
P.P.S. An American Company, marketing American Companies! Call or email to get an appointment to pick my brain (a $125.00 value) for 30 minutes.
(1 to 5 with 5 being the most important)
To Raise Awareness
1 – 0%
2 – 5%
3 – 15%
4 – 38%
5 – 40%
To serve as voice of the company
1 – 2%
2 – 9%
3 – 25%
4 – 34%
5 – 31%
To drive qualified Leads
1 – 1%
2 – 2%
3 – 12%
4 – 33%
5 – 52%
To nurture leads
1 – 3%
2 – 11%
3 – 27%
4 – 38%
5 – 21%
Source: B to B Analytics Survey and the Web Analytics Association 2010
I think the big question here is; are you a Marketing oriented person with sales tendencies or a Sales oriented person with marketing tendencies?
Marketing to Sales handoff
58% - Involvement never ends but the type and volume of engagement changes
16% - Once leads have been qualified and scored
10% - Once a program has started to generate leads
8% - Once a lead has been nurtured and shows strong buying intent
5% - Once the ad, tactic or program goes live or has been deployed
3% - Once a sale has been completed
1% - Other
* Source: 2010 Outlook: Marketing Priorities and Plans
The age old question of when a marketing department should hand off the lead to the sales department has not ended with the advent of Social Media Marketing but rather intensified it
Larson Notes & Satire: So are you the sales guy or the marketing person? Whichever way you lean is how you will probable rate the above functions. As an owner, marketing never stops but serves as a function of being in qualified sales leads to the sales department for them to close on. The two are not separate but must be joined at the hip to propel the companies close deals. If you are letting them operate in a dysfunctional way you are losing valuable synergy. My feeling is that marketing should be handing off the lead to sales ASAP so they can do what they do best, being the prospect into the fold as a customer. In every business there is a sales cycle. The sooner you get the prospect into that cycle the better. Another key point here is that Marketing’s function is not to close sales but to get the word out and make awareness. Marketing can still push out to a prospect even while sales is working on them, but there needs to be a hand off. There can be 3 parts to your marketing attach, presales marketing, during-sales marketing and after-sales marketing.
If your marketing people and your sales people are talking to each other they can complement each other and make life a whole lot easier for each other. If they don’t talk, you got a message nightmare that can be giving out 5 or 6 messages at the same time to the same people. To this I have only 2 words: Good Luck!
Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate
P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.
P.P.S. An American Company, marketing American Companies! Call or email to get an appointment to pick my brain (a $125.00 value) for 30 minutes.
Friday, August 6, 2010
The Measurement of Social Media?
1) Community Growth: Just home many members are you adding each and every month or week? Heck you can even ask yourself how many new members are you adding a day! You can ask what this number is when you compare the numbers of web site hits or forum post comment s or views. Are you getting enough and are you creating an individual benchmark for yourself?
2) Content Rating: Do you measure how effective a given article of post is based on the number of “thumbs ups”, comments, views, retwitter, a link to it on twitter or getting it featured on a Ning site? This is gold in getting new views and new followers.
3) Traffic: Page views are not top dog with all the traffic and pass though’s going on but it is still important to measure the kind of traffic and his your site is getting.
4) Call deflection: In support instances if customers and prospects are brave enough to stick their online necks out and be bold enough to answer a question or deflect a criticism you need to reward them
5) Sentiment: Avid online SMer’s are working on how to make and work with both positive as well as negative posts and conversations. Outside of the time that it takes to sift though social media content to date it doesn’t hurt to do it once in a while (weekly perhaps) Yet, the largest consensus that I have found is that sentiment analysis is still in is infancy and has a long way to go from being an automated process. That being said, someone might have and put forward a solution next week, or even as soon as today. Such is the rate of SM change.
Larson Notes & Satire: Most “experts” are in agreement that to date establishing a standardized matrix of community can work in sites with a standardized purpose. But not free falling sites like Facebook. Idea generation, supporting and so called emergencies have a greater tendency to spike hits and activity rather than give back long term (over a month) residuals.
When posting anything remember your customers and prospects might not always like what you have to say. Heavens knows I have said a few things online that have gotten my virtual butt kicked. But ask yourself, was what I posted (or is what I’m going to post) helpful? Did I solve a problem?
When tracking hits remember to watch out for the bot attacks. It might seem like a lot of hits are pounding on you but those little bots come and go. Keep a close eye on comments and thumbs ups, not the counter.
Some of your customers and prospects will view your site as a question solver and will look at it for questions they will NEVER call up and ask your customer service people.
And always keep an eye out for your online reputation. Once something is out there it can drag you down. The scary part is it might now happen immediately. It something is posted today, some negative detractor might find it 6 months from now and act and talk about it like it is current news.
Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates
http://teamcircle.ning.com/profile/HowardLarson
https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate
P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.
P.P.S. An American Company, marketing American Companies! Call or email to get an appointment to pick my brain (a $125.00 value) for 30 minutes.
2) Content Rating: Do you measure how effective a given article of post is based on the number of “thumbs ups”, comments, views, retwitter, a link to it on twitter or getting it featured on a Ning site? This is gold in getting new views and new followers.
3) Traffic: Page views are not top dog with all the traffic and pass though’s going on but it is still important to measure the kind of traffic and his your site is getting.
4) Call deflection: In support instances if customers and prospects are brave enough to stick their online necks out and be bold enough to answer a question or deflect a criticism you need to reward them
5) Sentiment: Avid online SMer’s are working on how to make and work with both positive as well as negative posts and conversations. Outside of the time that it takes to sift though social media content to date it doesn’t hurt to do it once in a while (weekly perhaps) Yet, the largest consensus that I have found is that sentiment analysis is still in is infancy and has a long way to go from being an automated process. That being said, someone might have and put forward a solution next week, or even as soon as today. Such is the rate of SM change.
Larson Notes & Satire: Most “experts” are in agreement that to date establishing a standardized matrix of community can work in sites with a standardized purpose. But not free falling sites like Facebook. Idea generation, supporting and so called emergencies have a greater tendency to spike hits and activity rather than give back long term (over a month) residuals.
When posting anything remember your customers and prospects might not always like what you have to say. Heavens knows I have said a few things online that have gotten my virtual butt kicked. But ask yourself, was what I posted (or is what I’m going to post) helpful? Did I solve a problem?
When tracking hits remember to watch out for the bot attacks. It might seem like a lot of hits are pounding on you but those little bots come and go. Keep a close eye on comments and thumbs ups, not the counter.
Some of your customers and prospects will view your site as a question solver and will look at it for questions they will NEVER call up and ask your customer service people.
And always keep an eye out for your online reputation. Once something is out there it can drag you down. The scary part is it might now happen immediately. It something is posted today, some negative detractor might find it 6 months from now and act and talk about it like it is current news.
Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates
http://teamcircle.ning.com/profile/HowardLarson
https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate
P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.
P.P.S. An American Company, marketing American Companies! Call or email to get an appointment to pick my brain (a $125.00 value) for 30 minutes.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
What is your Social Media Marketing Goal?
So you are out there on who knows how many Social Media sites, but why? Do you really know or are you doing it because someone said you should, or your competition is or you have time on your hands to kill?
Get real! 71% of marketers say that their digital advertising objective is brand and image building. Do you know what your objective is?
71% - Building brand & Image
64% - Lead generation for follow up
52% - Direct sales of products and services
45% - Deliver product information
43% - Collection of customer and prospect information
16% - Stimulate retail visits
6% - Other
In business and a lot of other things there is an old saying to “follow the money”. So to with marketing and advertising. So, where is the money going to adverting and market companies?
28.7% - E-mail
23.8% - Direct mail
12.0% - Catalogs
10.3% - Outbound telemarketing
5.3% - Mobile ads
20.0% - Other
* Source: The Direct marketing Association & David Shepard, Associates. Sample 541 total respondents since survey deployed in December of 2009
Larson Notes & Satire: To date Larson & Associates is listed on over 75 different SM sites. Now you ask why am I on and in Social Media sites and what is my objective? I use it to create my position of my company to the market and to test new services. That is my main objectives. My Secondary objective is Lead generation and direct sales. Sales are and always will be important but in sales my main directive is outbound telemarketing, direct mail and f2f networking. Social Media Marketing is Position. That could and might change but for now that is how it plays out here.
So maybe it’s time for you to sit down and figure out just why you’re here or sit down with your marketing consultant and do a little brainstorming. It can’t hurt, can it?
Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://teamcircle.ning.com/profile/HowardLarson
https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate
P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.
P.P.S. An American Company, marketing American Companies! Call or email to get an appointment to pick my brain (a $125.00 value) for 30 minutes.
Get real! 71% of marketers say that their digital advertising objective is brand and image building. Do you know what your objective is?
71% - Building brand & Image
64% - Lead generation for follow up
52% - Direct sales of products and services
45% - Deliver product information
43% - Collection of customer and prospect information
16% - Stimulate retail visits
6% - Other
In business and a lot of other things there is an old saying to “follow the money”. So to with marketing and advertising. So, where is the money going to adverting and market companies?
28.7% - E-mail
23.8% - Direct mail
12.0% - Catalogs
10.3% - Outbound telemarketing
5.3% - Mobile ads
20.0% - Other
* Source: The Direct marketing Association & David Shepard, Associates. Sample 541 total respondents since survey deployed in December of 2009
Larson Notes & Satire: To date Larson & Associates is listed on over 75 different SM sites. Now you ask why am I on and in Social Media sites and what is my objective? I use it to create my position of my company to the market and to test new services. That is my main objectives. My Secondary objective is Lead generation and direct sales. Sales are and always will be important but in sales my main directive is outbound telemarketing, direct mail and f2f networking. Social Media Marketing is Position. That could and might change but for now that is how it plays out here.
So maybe it’s time for you to sit down and figure out just why you’re here or sit down with your marketing consultant and do a little brainstorming. It can’t hurt, can it?
Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://teamcircle.ning.com/profile/HowardLarson
https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate
P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.
P.P.S. An American Company, marketing American Companies! Call or email to get an appointment to pick my brain (a $125.00 value) for 30 minutes.
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